


Did I build this ship to wreck

by heavenisalibrary



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-09
Updated: 2015-06-09
Packaged: 2018-04-03 17:03:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4108351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heavenisalibrary/pseuds/heavenisalibrary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The date isn’t going well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Did I build this ship to wreck

**Author's Note:**

> an alternate fill for the RD Ficathon. Prompt: While out with River, an oblivious Doctor gets hit on by someone nearby and, being the Doctor, does a bit of innocent flirting in return. Cue the appearance of his wife’s jealous streak.
> 
> I started writing this one, then changed my mind and [wrote the other one instead.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3927895) Figured I may as well write the last few paragraphs to this.

The date isn’t going well.

She’s too young, and he’s not old enough to manage her and not young enough to give into her. He made reservations at a very nice restaurant on an incredibly picturesque planet that improbably existed in a state of constant sunset, and the room is floor to ceiling windows all around so that the warm, golden light suffuses everything — that part is almost perfect. What doesn’t work is River’s dress — short, tight, not quite appropriate — and how he doesn’t like a single thing on the menu. They bicker over the wine choice (his choice is soda) and she nearly strangles him as he places his specific, bizarre, piecemeal order. They’re both on edge all evening, as though they can feel that their timelines aren’t quite meeting properly; he’d gone to pick her up for their date, but he’d run into the wrong River, too young and mucking about irresponsibly in her own time stream, before he could find the older River. The whole thing sets his teeth on edge, and her too, judging by the way she narrows her eyes at him as he slurps the last of his soup.

“There’s meant to be dessert after this,” he says. He meant to say it as a positive, but it comes out more like a warning.

“Do you think we’ll survive another course?” River asks. “I think we might get kicked out if I strangle you with your bow tie.”

“Rude,” he says, pushing the soup away. “You might need to use the loo before then and then they’ll see your dress and you’ll get kicked out.”

“What’s wrong with my dress?”

“It’s not exactly, you  know,” the Doctor said, flailing his hand vaguely in her direction and watching her eyes narrow further. He knows he shouldn’t provoke her, but he can’t resist when she’s being so difficult. “ _Appropriate_.”

River lets out a bark of laughter. “Says the man who requested custard for his starter.”

“Well, I —”

“Says the man who wears a bow tie.”

“Bow ties are —”

“Says the man who once accessorized with celery.”

“Alright!” he shouts, attracting the attention of the other diners, enjoying their civilized small talk. He wonders if they’re making a spectacle or if he just feels like they are because she has him so stressed he’s concerned his shoulders are going to permanently take residence up around his ears.

“Next time you try and insult my concept of appropriateness, sweetie,” River says, “do consider that I learned from the very best.”

He glares at her and she glares right back, leaning over the table. He fights with River often, but it’s usually more flirting than fighting, at least after a fashion — she’s actually frustrated with him now, instead of just trying to incite a reaction, and he thinks he actually would prefer to leave her here to find her own way home.

“ _Rude_ ,” he repeats.

“Again,” she says, “learned from the _very_ best.”

“I don’t think dessert’s a good idea after all,” he says.

“Nor do I.”

“Fine,” he says.

“Fine.”

They glare at one another a moment longer before they both go to stand. The Doctor leaves behind some credits to pay for the meal — although he briefly considers pretending not to have brought money, just to get on her nerves — and starts to follow her out of the room. They get about halfway out before he cringes and grabs her elbow, turning her around to face him.

She’ll have to put up with much worse from him in the future. When she’s older and knows everything and he’s young, he knows he’ll be cruel and callous and challenge her at every turn — he know there’ll be times when he doesn’t trust her, and he knows how much that will hurt her. He also knows that she’ll die to save him, one day, and so he owes her a bit of dispensation, especially when this mismatched evening isn’t even remotely her fault. She tries to tug her arm away from him, but he keeps a gentle hold on her elbow, stroking her skin softly with his thumb.

“River,” he says, “I’m sorry, alright? I’m a bit on edge tonight, and it’s not your fault. Well, it is a little your fault. But it’s mine too. Can we — can we try again?”

“How do you mean?” she says. She still looks angry and her arms are still crossed over her chest, but the fact that she hasn’t incapacitated him and stolen the TARDIS speaks well to the mendability of this fence.

“Not dessert,” he says. “A drink?”

Her face stays hard.

“A drink anywhere you like,” he says, “clearly we need a change of scene.”

“Alright,” she says, “fine.”

Her lips twitch ever so slightly at the corners as he nods his head eagerly, gesturing for her to lead the way, and he thinks maybe the evening is salvageable after all.

  
  
  


Of course, he spoke too soon. River takes him to a dive bar in a nearby, dodgy neighborhood — honestly, he doesn’t know what the Silence did to River that makes her so able to find the one place she shouldn’t be on every planet at every point in history — and it’s too loud and too crowded, although at least she fits in in her tiny, tiny dress. She takes his hand and leads him through the crowd, and he sighs through his nose, trying to get himself to relax, and making a mental note to take River to that restaurant some time in her future, when she’s less likely to kill him.

She orders them a couple of drinks and they lean against the bar, but every time he tries to talk to her, she gives him the bare minimum response — still irritated, then. At the very least she’d gotten him a drink that tastes more like candy than alcohol.

After fifteen minutes, they’ve all but got their backs turned to one another. He knows, as the one further along in their timelines, the onus to fix this is on him, but he doesn’t _want_ to. His evening had been derailed, too. Much as he loves his wife, dealing with her when she’s young and liable to blow at any minute is not just infuriating or baffling or any manner of things, it’s also acutely painful, in the constant reminder it is that she’s getting farther and farther away from him. It makes his hearts feel heavy in his chest and he’s felt vaguely nauseous all evening. So he sips at his drink, glancing at her over his shoulder every few moments as she bounces slightly to the beat.

When he turns back around, there’s a young woman in front of him, wearing even less than River.

“Hello,” she says, stepping into his personal space. He flails about a bit as she reaches out to trace a finger over the buttons of his shirt, and he just barely swallows back a yelp. “Come here often?”

“Isn’t that my line?” he asks, without thinking.

“You tell me,” the young woman, tossing her hair over her shoulder. Her skin’s a lovely shade of cerulean, and he thinks that she’s probably quite attractive by this planet’s standards, but he’s currently on a date with his wife, who doesn’t know she’s his wife, which makes this not nearly the time to chit-chat with beautiful blue women.

“Erm,” he says, quite intelligently.

“I’m Zelda,” she says, stepping closer into his personal space.

He doesn’t know what to do. He should probably grab River and introduce her to Zelda to make it clear he’s not here alone, but then he’s not sure if grabbing River will solve the problem or just get him beaten up by River. So he shoves his drink toward Zelda, using it to put some space between them. “Drink?” he asks.

She smirks at him, leans forward, and wraps her lips around his straw, drinking very slowly. He lifts a hand to cover his eyes, because this whole thing seems so inappropriate, and he and River were just talking about that, but as he does so he jostles into River, who suddenly appears at his side.

“River!” he says, flailing even more wildly, and yanking his drink back from Zelda. “I’m not — this isn’t — this is Zelda.”

“Hello,” River says, coldly. The Doctor watches her carefully as she steps so that she’s standing slightly in front of the Doctor, smiling at Zelda in that way that makes even his blood run cold. “I’m River Song.”

The Doctor feels even more nauseous now.

“We’ve just met,” the Doctor says, “just now, just this second. Barely exchanged a word.”

“Don’t be silly,” Zelda says, hitting the Doctor’s shoulder gently, in a way that’s meant to be affectionate, and he practically _feels_ River bristle. “We’re getting on well, aren’t we? I was just going to tell your friend here about a party —”

“Not my friend,” River says.

“Oh, no?” Zelda says. “Lovely, in that case — just you should come. What’s your name?”

“The Doctor,” he says, “just the Doctor, and I’m sure it’s a brilliant party —”

“It is,” Zelda says, stepping nearer to the Doctor and ignoring River entirely. The Doctor feels another grey hair growing in. “And we can get to know one another better. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“Well I —”

“You wouldn’t like to get to know me?”

“Of course I —”

River steps between he and Zelda, shoving her backward slightly and grabbing the lapels of the Doctor’s  jacket. She pulls him to her and kisses him, and he stumbles backward as she practically throws her weight against him, but he certainly doesn’t mind, catching her clumsily around the waist. It only takes him a moment to find his bearings, flatting one hand against the small of her back and losing the other in her hair, and when he tugs at her hair gently, pulling her head back slightly to give him a better angle, she gasps, opening her mouth to him. She sweeps her tongue through his mouth before he can do anything, though, taking control, her hands slipping beneath his suit jacket to flatten over the thin material of his shirt, each palm resting over one of his hearts. She bites his lip as she pulls away, and he stumbles back toward her as she steps out of his arms, as though she was the only thing holding him up. Maybe she was.

Reaching a  hand up to make sure she hasn’t drawn blood, he feels himself flush to the tips of his ears as he turns around to face Zelda.

“Not a friend,” River repeats.

Zelda puts up her hands in surrender and walks away. River turns back to him, but instead of looking as soft and fond as he feels, she still looks angry.

“Don’t look so smug, you idiot,” River says, “couldn’t find the words to say ‘I’m taken’?”

“I didn’t know if I was,” the Doctor says, “given dinner.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” River says, “we had one lousy evening when we weren’t on the same page. It happens. I imagine it will especially happen to us, all things considered.”

“You’re not going to dump me, then?”

“If you carry on flirting with other women in front of me I might.”

“I wasn’t —”

“Don’t be daft,” River says, “you flirt as you breathe, sweetie. I’m the same way. But keep it in your pants if I’m here.”

“Keep it in my — it wasn’t coming out of my — don’t be ridiculous. I don’t like — I’m not here for — I’m not good at — I don’t…” He tugs a hand through his hair, frustrated by his inability to say what he means when it comes to River. It’s just that he never seems to find the words to do justice to how he feels about her, and sometimes when he can come close, she’s too young to hear it. He doesn’t want to scare her, or pressure her, but he’s too staggered by what she means to him standing at stark odds with what she seems to think she means to him not to say anything.

“River Song, Melody Pond,” he says, stepping toward her to rest his hands on either side of her face. She watches him warily. “I don’t want to take it out of my pants for anybody but you.”

Her jaw drops, and he instantly wishes he could stuff those words back into his mouth.

“I didn’t mean to say that!” he says, jumping away from her and slapping a hand over his forehead. “Honestly, I was going to say something nice and — and it just — it just got all jumbled, dating you is very stressful, you know that?”

Instead of being annoyed or offended, River bursts into laughter.

“Come here, you idiot,” she says, reaching out to grab him by his shirt against and tugging him to her.

This time, he’s ready for her, settling his hands around her waist as she drapes her arms over his shoulders, pulling herself up onto her tip toes and melting her lips against his with a soft sigh. He can practically taste her smile.

She slides one hand up, tangling it into his hair as she leans her weight against him, backing him slowly into the wall behind him and then settling herself against him. She feels warm and soft and pliant in his arms, a far cry from the constant sniping and bickering and tenseness from earlier, and he practically whimpers as she runs her tongue gently over the roof of his mouth, her nails scraping gently over his scalp.

Every movement she makes is slow and soft and gentle, from the slight roll of her hips against him to the way her lips work over his, to the scrape of her nails over his back as she slides the hand not in his hair beneath his tweed.

This kind of slow building warmth is unusual for her this young — lately, it’s been rough, grasping hands and needy mouths and scraping teeth and her shoving him hard against various surfaces — and the surprise of it makes it even better. Warmth climbs slowly up his spine as she continues to kiss him, hardly breaking for air to the point where he feels a tingling low in his chest, a warning that his respiratory bypass is threatening to kick in.

She must feel it too, because she breaks away from him at long last, her eyes dark and hooded, her lips swollen red, her hair mussed. He loves River like this; thoroughly rumpled and a little more hungry than satisfied.

“I should make you jealous more often,” the Doctor says.

“Don’t you dare.”

“It salvaged our date this time,” he says, “this part is much more fun than dinner.”

“I know how we can make it even better,” she says, stepping back into him to place a kiss to the center of his throat as he swallows, and then to the side of his neck, nuzzling her nose against his cheek as he shivers.

“Yeah?”

“ _Absolutely_ ,” she purrs, “I’m very creative given the proper medium.”

“I know you are,” he says, turning his head slightly to kiss her temple.

“I know you know.”

“TARDIS?” he asks, reaching down to twine his fingers with hers, and lifting her hand to kiss the back. She crinkles her nose at him, and he can’t help but lean forward to kiss the lines over the bridge of her nose.

“Take me home, honey,” she says.

“Yes, dear.”


End file.
